A computer or server may store thousands of files. As such, it becomes convenient to represent each file with some identifying information, such as a file name, for example. In this way a user may locate a particular file of interest. Over time, various techniques have evolved to represent different types of files more effectively. For instance, movement from text based to graphical based representations allow files to be represented by different icons, with a distinct icon for word processing documents, another distinct icon for a spreadsheet document, and so forth. Each evolution in file representation makes it that much easier for a user to locate a given file.
Recently, however, both online and offline memory storage has made it possible for a single user to store or access many more files than ever before, sometimes by orders of magnitude. To provide finer distinctions between files, conventional file representation techniques have moved to generating file representations using actual content stored within a file. A computer file may store various types of digital media content. For example, a word processing document may include formatted text, numbers, pictures, tables, and so forth. A file representation may now be built using some of the stored content, such as building a file icon with a picture pulled from the file. Despite these innovations, file representation techniques have not kept pace with the increased levels of file storage. As such, it has become increasingly difficult for users to locate a file of interest. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present improvements have been needed.